


A Great Survivor

by Ralkana



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: #coulsonlives, Baseball, Bonding, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Male Bonding, Man Out of Time, One Shot, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralkana/pseuds/Ralkana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil and Steve bond over the Great American Pastime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Great Survivor

**Author's Note:**

> _If I walked back into the booth in the year 2025, I don't think it would have changed much. I think baseball would be played pretty much the same as it is today. It's a great survivor._ \-- Ernie Harwell, legendary long time baseball announcer, mostly for the Detroit Tigers (though he did broadcast for Steve's Brooklyn Dodgers for a little while)
> 
> **VAGUELY SPOILERY FOR THE MOVIE.**
> 
> Disclaimer ~ Marvel's, not mine. Nor do I own any of the mentioned MLB, NFL, or NBA teams.

 

Steve is passing by the media room on his way to the kitchen when he realizes the large flatscreen is on, the last person he expected to see there in the middle of the day sitting on the sofa facing it.

"Agent Coulson?" he asks as he comes partway into the room, and the other man jumps in surprise, a small pile of papers sliding from his lap to the floor.

"Captain Rogers," Coulson replies as he carefully reaches down to pick up the paperwork. "I didn't realize anyone else was home."

"I was down at R&D, and they finished with me early," Steve says as he comes closer and crouches to help him re-gather his work.

"Thanks," Coulson murmurs as Steve hands over the files. "I don't normally watch television while I work, but it's the playoffs."

He looks guilty, like he expects Steve to immediately rush off to tell Director Fury that he's shirking his duty, or worse, like he expects Steve to be disappointed in him for his appalling lack of discipline, but the man is still recovering from a nearly-fatal injury, and he's pretty much on duty every hour of every day because he lives with the Avengers, and Steve's not going to begrudge him a little quiet time, not when the opportunity for it is so rare.

And, it's _baseball_. 

Steve's tried to catch up on the game since he's been... back, but it's all so different, and there are so many other things he needs to learn, and well, his team is gone. But he'll always love the game.

"The World Series?" he asks as he peers at the television, trying to identify the teams.

"Division Series," Coulson corrects, and when Steve glances at him, confused, he clarifies, "The first round of the postseason."

That doesn't actually clarify anything, so Coulson goes on to explain the current format of postseason baseball, talking until Steve feels like his head is spinning.

"It's so different," he murmurs, shaking his head. "So many games -- so many teams!"

He glances back at the game when he hears the crack of the bat, the rising roar of the crowd.

"Not everything is different," Coulson says with a small smile as the triumphant batter circles the bases.

"Mind if I join you?" Steve asks, and he watches as Coulson's eyes glaze over a little, his cheeks flushing.

It happens sometimes when Steve talks to him -- Tony calls it his Fanboy Phil face -- and Steve thinks what might be running through his mind is something like, _Gee, Captain America wants to sit and watch baseball with me!_

"Sure," Coulson says quickly, shifting some of his files from the couch to the coffee table.

"I'm going to get something to drink," Steve tells him. "You want something? Soda? Beer?"

"Soda would be great, thanks," Coulson replies, and he gestures to the paperwork. "Still on duty, even if it is light duty."

There is a hint of resignation in his voice, and Steve gives him a commiserating look. SHIELD’s doctors are being very cautious with their timetable for Coulson’s return to active duty, mostly, Steve thinks, because they’ll have the combined force of six very protective Avengers to worry about if they’re not.

"Be right back," he says as he heads once more toward the kitchen.

He's pleased when he opens the refrigerator and finds a six-pack of the handcrafted root beer JARVIS procures for Tony from somewhere unknown -- it's Steve's newest vice, and he grabs a couple of bottles and quickly pops the caps off. Tony will whine and complain that they're gone, but they'll be replaced by tomorrow.

Steve finds himself smiling a little as he thinks again of Coulson's flushed face, and he shakes his head, somewhat baffled by his own reaction. He is no stranger to hero worship -- he's seen it in every possible form since his earliest days with the USO, and it usually just makes him uncomfortable.

He won't deny that Coulson's open adulation when they first met put him off a little bit; it was so unexpected, and it came right in the middle of a major crisis brewing. He still feels guilty that the other man might have died thinking his hero was a standoffish jerk, even though Coulson is alive, and mostly whole, and just down the hall.

Coulson works very hard now to hide his admiration, not wishing to embarrass himself or Steve, and it's only in a few, quiet moments -- like the one that just happened -- that it's at all visible.

Steve would never embarrass him by mentioning it -- though Tony has no scruples in that area, or seemingly _any_ area, really -- but he's realizing that he finds it a bit flattering, and, well, endearing.

Phil Coulson is the kind of man Steve has always admired -- strong, loyal, hardworking, quietly brave -- and if Steve's life has influenced him in some way to become the man he is, that's sort of amazing, and a little bit humbling.

Hero worship normally makes Steve feel like a fraud, but Coulson's admiration somehow makes him feel more... real, because they are slowly getting to know each other, and Coulson seems to respect _Steve_ just as much as he respects Cap.

It feels like real friendship, and Steve grins at the thought.

He returns to the media room to see Coulson scratching away at his forms and yet another player circling the bases. Or maybe it's the same player, it's not like Steve can tell.

The graphic in the corner of the screen says it's 12-4 in the eighth inning, if he's reading it correctly.

"Wow," he says as he hands Phil a bottle, nodding as the man murmurs his thanks. "Someone's getting slaughtered." He glances from the graphic to the teams on the field and then back again, and hazards a guess. "The Cardinals are winning? Is that still St. Louis?"

Coulson nods, and Steve is relieved -- some things are still the same.

"And they're beating the Senators?" he continues, but he knows right away that that's wrong.

"No, they're the Nationals, but they are Washington's team," Coulson says kindly, a complete lack of patronizing amusement in his voice, for which Steve is grateful. He always tries not to mind when the others think it's funny when he gets things wrong, but it's nice not to have to worry about it.

"That's right... the Senators moved to... where again?"

"Let's see... the Senators you'd know moved to Minnesota in the early sixties. They're now the Minnesota Twins. The same year they moved, another team started playing in Washington, also called the Senators. They moved about ten years later, and they're now the Texas Rangers. The Nationals started playing in Montreal as the Expos in the late sixties. They moved to Washington about eight years ago and became the Nats."

Steve shakes his head, still baffled by how many teams have just packed up and moved cross-country. He feels a little pang at the thought of his beloved Dodgers playing so far from Brooklyn.

"I can't imagine how it must feel as a fan to watch your team just disappear like that," he says. "It was hard enough to learn about it."

Coulson's smile is small, just a twitch of his mouth, but there's definitely a sardonic twist to his lips. "Could be worse," he says easily. "Your team could've snuck out of town in the middle of the night like it was embarrassed about a one night stand."

Steve stares at him in disbelief. "That... that doesn't actually happen, does it? How can you move a whole sports team overnight?"

"Ask the Indianapolis Colts," Phil says wryly, and when Steve just keeps staring at him, confused, he huffs out a bitter little laugh. "I don't know if you know this, Captain, but I'm from Baltimore."

Steve blinks, surprised and not a little honored, because that's the kind of personal information Coulson never volunteers. "No, I didn't," he tells Coulson, "And please, Agent Coulson -- call me Steve. We're not in the field."

Coulson's cheeks flush again, his happiness clear, and Steve wonders why it's taken him so long to come to this point. _Everything in its own time_ , he thinks. Before this, being on a first name basis might have seemed like an obligation -- now, it's a pleasure.

"Only if you call me Phil," Coulson counters, and he sits up just a little straighter when Steve nods agreeably.

"So... the Colts were Baltimore's baseball team and they moved to... where?" Steve asks, trying to piece together Phil's seemingly unconnected statements.

"Not baseball. Football. The Baltimore Colts were my team growing up, and they were my dad's team, too, long before they were mine. On March 29, 1984 -- by all accounts a cold and snowy Baltimore morning -- they packed up and shipped off completely unannounced to Indianapolis. I was already in the army, but I remember being absolutely floored when I saw the news reports from home."

"They just up and left? With no warning?" Steve asks, horrified.

"A convoy of Mayflower moving trucks showed up at the stadium in the middle of the night, and they were gone by mid-morning. The fans were outraged, the mayor cried on national television, dozens of people were suddenly unemployed -- it was a pretty complicated situation, and I try my best to see both sides of it, but really, what I know is that while I was a little confused and a little upset, my dad was completely devastated. He felt betrayed -- he'd given me the middle name John for his hero, one of the greatest men to ever play the game, I think he considered them part of his family, and when they just fled, he was heartbroken. He never watched another football game again."

Steve just stares at him. It seems to him like the whole thing upsets Phil more than he's willing to admit. "That's -- that's awful," he says after a long moment.

Coulson -- Phil -- smiles that wry little smile again. "Professional sports is big business."

Steve thinks, not for the first time, that this brave new world isn't all it's cracked up to be. "What happened to loyalty?"

"It got sold to the highest bidder."

Steve watches the Cardinals celebrate their victory on the field, whooping and backslapping like little boys, and he sees the Nationals slowly leave their dugout for the clubhouse, dejected. It's the same game he's always known, always loved, he realizes, just played for much higher stakes. Seems like everything is now.

He's a little amazed by how open Coulson -- Phil -- is being with him, and he wonders if it's simply his spontaneous offer of closer familiarity that's the cause. In any case, he's eager to see it continue; Phil knows quite a bit about Steve, after all, but they all know very little about him -- except for Clint and Natasha, of course, and neither of them would ever break Phil's confidence.

So when the camera cuts away from the players to a couple of men in suits and Phil glances back down at his work, Steve takes the opportunity to ask, "What about you? You ever pick a new team after yours left?"

Phil shakes his head. "Baltimore has another team now, the Ravens. They're pretty good, won the Super Bowl the only time they made it there. But I'm more of a baseball fan, always have been, much to Dad's dismay."

"Baltimore has a team, then?"

Phil nods. "The Orioles. They've been there since the early fifties. They've won it all a few times, but, not uh... not recently. This is the first time we've even made the playoffs in about fifteen years, and just barely at that, and we're already a game down."

"Who are you playing?"

"The big boys," Phil sighs, and Steve looks at him quizzically.

"You see, it's like this: you and I may not root for the same team, Captain -- Steve," he amends, his cheeks a little pink once more, "But we have a common enemy."

The feed switches from postgame coverage at one stadium to pregame coverage at another, and Steve watches as men in unfortunately familiar navy blue pinstripes take to the field for warm-up.

"I guess some things really _don't_ change," he says with a scowl toward the Yankees. "Why couldn't _they_ have moved to California?"

It surprises a rare laugh out of Coulson -- Phil -- and Steve feels a little bit of pride bloom that he is responsible for it.

"Now that is a beautiful sound," a voice says from the doorway. "Whatever you did to cause it, Cap, do it again."

They both turn in that direction, and Steve carefully ignores Phil's flinch at the sudden twisting movement.

"What are you doing here?" Phil says, and Steve wonders if he actually hears the hint of surprised pleasure in the words, or if he is just imagining it.

Clint crosses the room and plops himself down on the couch next to Phil, his face suddenly very somber.

"I have sustained a workplace injury," he says, and Steve watches all of Phil's good humor instantly flee like it was never there. "As such, I am reporting it to my handler as required."

He lifts his hand, very serious as he shows Phil the half-inch long scratch on the back of it. "It needs your attention, sir."

Phil's breath leaves him an annoyed huff, and he slaps Clint's hand away. Clint yelps dramatically and cradles his hand to his chest as Phil tells him, "I am not going to kiss your boo-boo better, Barton."

But Steve thinks, from the way Clint is theatrically pouting and the way Phil is trying to hide his smile, that Phil just might do that after all, later in their suite, when no one else is around.

"Seriously, Barton -- what are you doing here? You'd better not be playing hooky."

Highly scandalized, Clint gasps, and Steve barely suppresses his snort of laughter. "Never, sir! I'm just practicing my exfiltration skills."

Phil closes his eyes. "Does Sitwell know where you are?"

"I left him a note."

Phil's voice has acquired the long-suffering tone it only gets when he is dealing with the Avengers. "Somewhere he'll actually find it?"

Clint shrugs. "Depends on how good he is," he says, and Phil sighs.

"Stop frowning at me. Your game is about to start." He pulls something from his back pocket -- a worn and obviously well-loved black fielder's cap with a black and orange and white bird on the front -- and fits it onto Phil's head.

Phil's stern expression softens. "Did you escape from Sitwell just to come home and watch baseball with me?" he asks, his voice a mix of exasperation and fondness. When Clint just shrugs again, Phil says, "But you hate baseball."

"You don't," is all Clint says, and then he grins wickedly. "Besides, your team sucks so bad you never get to see them lose in October. I'm here to provide moral support."

Phil's eyes narrow. "Must I remind you, Barton, that you are, of all things, a _Nets_ fan?"

"I like to root for the underdog, and they are _always_ the underdog." Clint slouches back against the couch, tossing an arm around Phil's shoulders as he steals Phil's root beer and takes a long drink. "He try to convert you to the madness that is fantasy baseball yet, Cap?"

Steve shakes his head. "I've heard the term before, but no one's really explained it."

"It's Coulson's wet dream," Clint says, smirking. "Baseball with _paperwork_."

Phil irritably shrugs off Clint's arm. "Shut up, Barton. The game's on."

Steve has been so entertained watching the two of them that it isn't until he hears the umpire's overly dramatic strike call that he realizes that yes, the game has started. He relaxes against the cushions and takes a sip of his own root beer.

It's not the bleachers at Ebbets Field with Bucky, straining into the sun to see who's up at bat -- those days are long gone and they're never coming back -- but he takes a moment to be grateful that no matter what else has changed, he can still sit back and watch a ballgame with his friends.

**END**


End file.
